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‘Child porn’ dentist struck off

‘Child porn’ dentist struck off

A family dentist, convicted of child porn offences, has been struck off the register by the General Dental Council (GDC).

Barrington ‘Barry' Keen, from Luton, was convicted of 18 charges of making indecent photographs or pseudo-photographs of a child and two charges of having indecent photographs or pseudo-photographs of a child in October 2007.

In November 2007, he was sentenced to nine months imprisonment for those charges and was disqualified from working with children indefinitely.

He was also made subject to a Sexual Offences Prevention Order for a period of seven years containing the following prohibitions:

• not to purchase, install or use any software that removes evidence of a user's computer activity or any encryption software• not to prevent the police from having access to and carrying out any examination of any computers and storage media to which he has had access to at any time• ordered to be placed upon the Sex Offenders Register for a period of ten years.

The Committee noted the sentencing remarks of Judge Warner, who stated: ‘You pleaded guilty to 18 counts of making indecent images of children and to two compendious counts of possessing such images.

‘The offences which you committed involved the possession of in the region of 15,000 still images with a number of movie clips, some 80 of them at level one and over 280 images at level two, over 600 at level three and over 500 at level four and also some 29 or 30 at level five.

‘These are very substantial quantities with significant numbers of them being at the higher levels of seriousness. That collection was acquired over a period of time and I have viewed a selection of these images.

‘They involve the abuse of young children. In one instance in count 13 a young child who is audibly distressed by what is being done to her. The ages of these children range from as low as six years of age and in some instances, as I have been told, involve images of bestiality.'

The Committee determined that the kind of behaviour displayed by Mr Keen was fundamentally incompatible with dental registration because it brings the profession into disrepute and undermines the public confidence in the profession. Given the severity of the offences, the Committee found that erasure with immediate suspension was the only appropriate and proportionate sanction.